electrical clouds, which frequently gather suddenly among the Highlands during the heats of July and August, came up from the west, obscured the sun, hovered upon the summit of the Storm King a few minutes, and then passed eastward, giving out only a few drops of rain where I stood, but casting down torrents in Newburgh Bay, accompanied by shafts of forked lightning and heavy peals of thunder. There was a perfect calm while the darkness brooded. Not a vessel was in sight, and no living thing was visible, except the white sea-gulls, which seem to be always on the

wing in the van or in the wake of a tempest. The shower passed eastward over the Matteawan Hills, when suddenly there appeared

" That beautiful one, ■\\niose arch is refraction, whose keystone the sun, In the hues of its grandeur, sublimely it stood O'er the river, the village, the field, and the wood,"

and cast a beautiful radiance over the great hills of the Shattemuc *

* The Wappengi and Matteawan tribes called the Hudson Shattemuc, and the HiglUands below the Matteawan, or Fishklll Mountains, tlie Hills of the Shattemuc.

THE HUDSON. 213

among which I stood, gazing upon a sublime scene with wonder and delight.

After the shower had passed by, I rowed to the middle of the river, in the direction of Cold Spring \illage, on the eastern shore, and obtained a fine view of the Highland entrance to Newburgh 13ay. The evening sun was pouring a flood of light upon the scene. On the left, in shadow, stood the Storm King, on the right was rugged Breakneck, with its neighbour, round Little Beacon Hill, and between was Pollopell's Island, a solitary rocky eminence, rising from the river, a mile north of them. Beyond these were seen the expanse of Newburgh Bay, the village, the cultivated country beyond, and the dim pale blue peaks of the Katzbergs, almost sixty miles distant.